Jonathan Ross: his lasting legacy at the BBC

Telegraph View: the net of the corporation's 'taste police' has been cast too wide

Telegraph View

8:00AM GMT 10 Jan 2010

Jonathan Ross's lasting legacy is becoming clear. Thanks to his and Russell Brand's crude, crass phone calls to Andrew Sachs, the BBC's "taste police" have ordered that all programmes that might cause offence be reviewed. This might sound like a good idea, except that the net has been cast wide enough to encompass classical music concerts, children's programmes, even the Armistice Day celebrations. True, the Teletubbies have been criticised for promoting homosexuality (one "male", Tinky Winky, carries a woman's handbag), but it still seems unlikely that their creators would try to slip in a few racist diatribes. Ultimately, the best shield against offensive or obscene material is the good sense of the BBC's senior managers. Mind you, surveying the output they oversee, and their attempts to justify their enormous salaries, it is hard to associate many of that group with good sense of any kind.